The present invention relates to image processing apparatuses that store print jobs received from terminal apparatuses even after printing, and accept operations of changing the contents of settings for those stored print jobs.
In the process of producing printed matter, a print job is created in a terminal apparatus such as a PC (personal computer), and is transmitted to a printing apparatus where it is made to be printed, and then the printed matter that is outputted is verified by visual inspection by an operator. Depending on the result of such verification any necessary corrections are made and the printed matter is printed again, or when the result of verification indicates that the printed matter is normal, the process can be transferred to large volume printing. At this time, in a system configuration in which the operator carries out the work by traveling between the terminal apparatus and the printing apparatus, the work efficiency is not high in an installation environment in which the terminal apparatus and the printing apparatus are placed distant from each other.
In view of this, there exists a printing apparatus in which a print job received from a terminal apparatus is stored in the printing apparatus even after the printing is completed, and change instructions related to the output settings such as punching or stapling are received by the operation section of the printing apparatus, and then changes according to those change instructions are made in that apparatus itself for the stored print jobs.
Further, a printer system has been proposed (see, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-304881), in which, when a remote desktop connection request is made from the printing apparatus to the terminal apparatus, the display data of an operation screen by a graphic user interface is transmitted from the terminal apparatus to the printing apparatus, and remote operation of the terminal apparatus can be carried out from the printing apparatus through that operation screen. In this printer system, by remote operation from the printing apparatus, it is possible to start the printer driver of the terminal apparatus, to carry out setting of the printing conditions again, and to instruct the printing.
In a system in which the items that can be changed in the printing apparatus are limited to those related to the output settings such as punching or stapling, for example, when changing the settings related to the image enlargement or reduction function, or the N in 1 function by which images of a plurality of pages (N pages) are reduced and fitted in one page, it is necessary to return to the terminal apparatus and carry out the work.
On the other hand, in a method of carrying out the remote desktop connection such as in Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2007-304881, although there is no limitation on the items that can be changed, a more than necessary load is placed on the communication lines, since a print job is always created by the printer driver and is transmitted to the printing apparatus when changing any item. For example, even when making changes only regarding stapling, the entire print job including the image data is transmitted from the terminal apparatus to the printing apparatus, and the communication load increases.
The present invention was made for solving the above problem, and an object of the present invention is to provide an image processing apparatus in which, for a print job received from a terminal apparatus, a variety of setting changes can be carried out without increasing the communication load between it and the terminal apparatus by more than that necessary, and also without the operator having to return to the terminal apparatus.